Financial data can typically be analyzed by users via applications that allow users to create analysis workflows. A workflow usually includes several components, each component generally specifying many parameters. In addition, a particular component can reference another component or a parameter within another component. For example, a first component of a workflow may include a subset of stocks to be analyzed, and a second component may apply a function to the subsets of stocks specified in the first component to generate a parameter within the second component.
After creating a particular workflow, the user often wants to modify one or more parameters of the components included in the workflow and, thereby, generate a new workflow. In existing applications, the user has to re-create the components with the modified parameters and then regenerate the new workflow. Such a solution is not only cumbersome, but is also very time-consuming as re-creating the components often takes a significant amount of time. In addition, such a solution is error prone as the user has to manually re-create the components. Lastly, because several copies of similar workflows are created, such as a solution is also not storage space efficient.
As the foregoing illustrates, what is needed in the art is a mechanism for generating new workflows from a current workflow.